President Joe Biden on Thursday announced an additional $800 million in military aid to help Ukraine fight back in its strong but increasingly difficult battle against the Russian invasion, but he also warned that Congress will need to approve additional assistance if the U.S. is to keep up its support.
The new military package includes much needed heavy artillery, 144,000 rounds of ammunition, and drones for Ukrainian forces in the escalating battle for the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Biden also announced that all Russian-affiliated ships would be barred from U.S. ports.
Just days before France’s crucial presidential runoff vote, the center-left leaders of Germany, Spain and Portugal urged French voters Thursday to choose centrist President Emmanuel Macron over far-right nationalist rival Marine Le Pen.
And in another sign of the wide international influence the result of Sunday’s French presidential vote will have, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny also spoke up a day earlier, urging French voters to back Macron and alleging that Le Pen is too closely linked to Russian authorities.
Le Pen has faced scrutiny before over a 9 million euro ($9.7 million) loan that her party received in 2014 from the First Czech-Russian Bank and her 2017 visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the French presidential runoff that year.
Five people were found dead inside a Duluth, Minnesota, home on Wednesday, after police received a report of a male experiencing a mental health crisis, authorities said.
The dead included the male reported to be in crisis.
Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said police in nearby Hermantown got an initial request to check on someone in that city at about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The investigation led them to contact Duluth police. Authorities eventually went to a Duluth home, where they found the bodies. Duluth is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of Minneapolis, on the shore of Lake Superior.